Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Purcey up, Wolfe DL'd

TORONTO — Some minor movement today after last night’s 14-inning marathon. Right-hander Brian Wolfe was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a right triceps strain and lefty David Purcey was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.

Unless he needs to pitch tonight for some reason, Purcey is scheduled to start and make his big-league debut on Friday against the Tigers. A.J. Burnett, who pitched in relief in the 14th inning on Wednesday, is now slated to start Sunday and Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch are moved back to Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Toronto manager John Gibbons made it clear that, regardless of how he pitches, Purcey is only with the Jays for one start. So don’t expect him to replace Litsch as Toronto’s fifth or anything. After he makes his appearance, the Jays will need to add another right-handed reliever to replace Wolfe — perhaps Brandon League will be back.

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13 Comments

how about that. purcey making his big league debut tommorow.
great idea by the jays, even if it is just one start. he can get his feet wet, give him a feel, and being at home with the home croud behind him should help his confidence. should be a great game. even if he struggles, at least he will have the first game under his belt, he can go back down, and in case of an injury, he’ll alrighty have made that first start.

Halladay looked especially pissed about tonight. That shot they had of him at the end of the game said it all. It looked like no one wanted to go near him.

Anyway, another frustrating loss to say the least. Frank Thomas should be dropped in the order untill he can get into his groove again. They can slide Overbay/Stairs in that spot against righties.
David Eckstein in the last hand full of games has looked good.
I am going to tomorrows game and am really excited about seeing Purcey make his mlb debut.

Halliday might have been upset with giving up 11 hits and 4 runs. I think his problem may have been the fact Texas saw him 5 days ago. Tough scheduling.

The concern is this team has good and bad nights hitting. Tonight they left 9 on. Thomas has gone 6 for 36 over the last 9 games. The thing that concerns me, is Texas threw him mostly fastballs, thinking I guess, that he couldn’t get around on it. (tonight, it looked like they’re right) Remember as well, we’re hung paying this guy 10 mill for next season. That was not the best contract JP ever signed.

Frankly, if we can find any other team willing to take Thomas, even if we pay 1/2 of his salary, I’d dump him and call up Lind who’s hitting at a .360 clip , with 3 hr’s and 13 rbi’s in 14 games. Lind’s numbers against RH’s are .424 ba, 3 hr’s, 10 rbi’s in 33 at bats.

Tommorrow night we go against Rogers, and a real scary lineup. It’d be interesting to see Stewart slotted in the 2nd hole and move Hill to 5th. Frank should be 7th or 8th until he gets it going.

Detroit love LH pitching, and appear to be getting on a roll after a real bad start. Purcey really has his work cut out for him, in his major league role, and frankly I feel sorry for him having to go against this Detroit lineup. We’d better put some numbers on the board soon and often.

Leaving Thomas in the 5th hole is just another example of Gibbons sleeping at the switch. Considering the fact, we’re probably facing Detroit at the worst time possible and we play them 4 times, I wonder if JP pulls the trigger on Gibbons, if Detroit nail us and we’re looking at a 6 and 0 or 5 and 1 home stand loosing record and 5 games out by Tuesday morning?

Nobody is going to fire Gibbons just because he loses a series this early in the year. And Thomas had a decent season last year and the year before, despite his slow start. Having a future Hall of Famer on your roster is definitely worth the money in terms of spin offs and marketing, and 30 home runs doesn’t hurt either.
When you take a look at our April schedule, I am surprised that we are even close to .500, considering that we are missing Rolen and Ryan. With a healthy Ryan, we would likely be at 10-6 instead of 8-8.
Moving Thomas down sounds good, but there is also something to be said for keeping a stable lineup. The problem right now is not “is Thomas hitting?”, but who is going to protect Wells. Aside from Rios, there is not a bat in the lineup that would force me to pitch to Wells, so you might as well leave Thomas there and hope he rounds into form sooner than later.
Always nice

I agree that Thomas should be dropped a few spots down the lineup. In the last couple games, the rangers were pitching around to Wells and went after Thomas..No protection at all for Wells.. Thomas just doesn’t look comfortable at the plate, and his timing is seriously messed up. I’m thinking Gibbons should leave him in the 5 spot for tonight because he has had great numbers against Rogers. But if he still struggles, he should be dropped in the lineup. I remember last season he was dropped to the 6 spot and climbed back up when he got his groove back. Man, do I miss Rolen right now.

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